i suppose most of it comes down to if you know how to drive a stick well ive owned a cummins in the automatic and with the mercedes manual and im considerably smoother driving the stick and the only way youd need to change your clutch out even close to k is if youre towing really heavy loads i rarely have less than tons on the back of my truck and i always get at least k out of a clutch in my jetta tdi i had k on the original clutch when i sold it once you factor in the cost of replacing a modern automatic transmission even if i had to change the clutch out every k id still be ahead the tranny in my minivan went out at k and cost to replace i could have clutches put in my jetta for that